Lebanese president to meet Trump as 'pilot zones' experiment begins

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun is about to break a nearly two-decade streak in which no Lebanese head of state has been inside the White House.

The former head of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) is set to meet US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, nearly a month after a trilateral framework was signed by the US, Israel, and Lebanon towards ending a war that has cost more than 4,000 Lebanese lives. 

The framework's first phase went into effect Monday, with the Trump administration announcing that "pilot zone operations began in the villages of Froun, Srifa, and Zawtar Al-Gharbiya... under the auspices of the Military Coordination Group for Lebanon". 

The idea of the so-called pilot zones is that as Israeli forces move out, the LAF will move in to take over the task of disarming Hezbollah.

It's unclear how the ill-equipped Lebanese army has been determined as ready for such a task, and whether it would be willing to fight Hezbollah's soldiers. But Washington did announce a $30m boost to the LAF - which relies on US funding - last month. 

"Hezbollah has a complicated incentive here. It clearly benefits politically if the framework fails, as Israeli non-withdrawal would validate its argument that diplomacy cannot affect Lebanon and that its weapons are necessary," Sami Halabi, the policy director and co-founder of consultancy firm Triangle, said at a media briefing on Monday organised by the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. 

"At the same time, Hezbollah and its allies... would like to see Israeli forces retreat, particularly from areas affecting their constituencies," he added. 

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